


down on both knees (hold me down)

by TheTartWitch



Series: Angstfest [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Culture Dissonance, Dark, F/M, I don't know if this can truly be classified as that, Intense feelings of possessiveness, Kakashi burns the world with the Uzumakis, Kakashi decides he's done with life, Kakashi is literally one of the loneliest people I know, Kakashi just wanted to be accepted, Karin POV, Karin burns the world, Karin is a dragon, Karin's hoard is people, Karin's is 'burning shit', Kushina POV, Kushina and Mito find different ways to cope with this issue, Kushina is frustrated, M/M, Murder-Mom!Kushina, Naruto POV, Naruto burns the world, Naruto can sense dark emotions and maybe sorta eats them, Naruto is a little manic, Naruto resurrects the dead, Naruto's 'quirk' is 'raising the dead', Not literally, Slight Fix-It AU??, Suigetsu and Juugo are perhaps not as against mass murder as they should be, The Uzumakis are tribal, They are dangerous and possessive and a little mad, Uzumaki OC, also he's probably really socially maladjusted in this, and decides he likes that a lot better, guess who accepted him Konoha, he joins up with Naruto, not you, somewhat addictive to write tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-11-10 11:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11125845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: Title from Halsey's Hold Me Down.





	1. Chapter 1

Naruto has a secret. His secret is made of broken feathers, dull eyes, and a heart long gone cold and silent. His secret was killed by a cat, but still flies, still makes time for Naruto, still  _ loves him so fiercely the world could burn with it _ -

\--

Naruto doesn’t have any friends. There’s Jiji, who comes to visit every once in a while, treat Naruto to lunch or dinner, and give the boy a taste of the darkness lingering on the man’s robes. They’re ceremonial, worn by countless generations of dead men, and Naruto just.

He can’t stop himself, okay? 

He can’t keep his hands off that robe, off the scent of dead things and shadows lurking in the folds, so he hugs Jiji, makes him promise to come back so Naruto can have a taste of his favorite addiction again. Someday he’s going to wear that robe and never take it off.

It’ll all be  _ his _ .

\--

He goes out and deliberately provokes them, sometimes. He stirs up the pain and hatred until it wafts through the streets of Konoha, and then he breathes it in,  _ ignites  _ it. ( _ bet your daughter screamed louder than you will, did you know that crushed heads look like a smashed pumpkin? Sometimes I dream about what it would be like to lure you into an empty alleyway and just. _

_ Chain you down, connect you to me forever. _ )

\--

His mother is the one he got this from, this strange... _ stirring  _ in his chest. He got the Kyuubi from her too, but this is something genetic, something  _ familial _ . The Uzumakis had a bloody streak the length of their history, something to drive some away and others closer, under the protective embrace of an Uzumaki in love. Jiji’s given him scrolls that can only be read by someone with his blood, and he knows why. They talk about the traditional punishments administered to those who harmed someone who belonged to an Uzumaki. Sometimes he’ll be reading and catch himself drooling. It’s easy enough to lie about ramen; after all, Uzumakis are famous for their love of the food.

\--

He’s done it loads of times: found something dead, a dog or bird or cat, knelt down, and given it back what it was missing. They get up, shake off the damage, and would give their everything for him. They wait for him in shadowy alleys and find him the best villagers, the ones that cry when they hear him laughing on the rooftops. 

They blame him for the deaths and hurt of their loved ones, and who is he to deny it? If given the chance, he’d do it all over again, show these traitors why his grandmother and his mother bided their time until they found someone to keep. Mito didn’t have a choice, but Kushina found someone absolutely perfect and chained him to her, held him under the water until when he came up, all he gasped for was her.

Someday, Naruto’s going to be just like his mom.

Believe it.

\--

The massacre was like a bouquet, so sweet on his tongue and lingering in his mind. He felt drunk off the fumes of it, and when he saw Sasuke again, he couldn’t stop himself from licking his lips.

_ Oh, Itachi, it’s not even my birthday _ .

\--

The ANBU are so careful, so cautious, that he feels bad for making them watch as he calls all his animal friends to him. During the day, they stalk the ANBU and jounin and keep him informed. Corpses don’t talk, after all, and Naruto has the best spies.

Naruto isn’t spoiled, but he always gets what he wants.

He wants Sasuke. Those eyes, that history, the soft, pervasive flavor of a genius mind falling apart in the leftovers; Naruto would have to be an idiot to discard such an obvious gift. He’ll have to do something nice for Itachi, something memorable.

( _ he listens to his pets, his informants, and sets Danzo’s ‘hidden’ base on fire. He adds to it, keeps the flames supplies with energy and food until everything is gone, and then he collects his new pets. These ones have the added bonus of arms and legs, fingers and toes, and nobody knows they exist. _ )

( _ the next morning, Sasuke gets a bundle of files on his desk, signed with a spiral and an obedient greyhound missing an eye. It died of heart failure, and so Sasuke is escorted by one of Naruto’s unmarked pets until they can meet in person. _ )

It’s perfect.

\--

Naruto graduates to stay with Sasuke. He doesn’t much care for Sakura, or for the ANBU-turned-jounin-sensei, but he’ll put up with them for now. The girl is like a stale cracker, tasteless for the most part and  _ so hard  _ to chew. Kakashi is a rush of flavor, but ultimately tastes _ less _ than Sasuke does. 

It is funny watching Kakashi’s mouth hang open when he accidentally catches Sasuke’s greyhound on fire and it makes no move to put them out. When he glances at Naruto, he grins so wide you can see his molars.

\--

Time for a history lesson: Uzumakis don’t have a queen, or a king, or a kage. They rule unanimously, able to agree or disagree easily amongst themselves. It’s when you introduce a new element, a new group, into their midst that they get territorial, predatory,  _ dangerous _ . They don’t take kindly to little girls and boys trying to poach their young out into the world, even if the young have teeth just as sharp as their parents do. 

They keep house with monsters, with demons, and with their spouses, timid and powerful and so, so  _ owned _ . Hashirama proposes to Mito without considering her needs, her culture. He drags her away from her people for peace and doesn’t understand that she thrives on the unrest she generates when she’s caught, covered in the pieces of a shinobi attempting assassination. 

In her home, they feed pieces of traitors to the sharks swimming in the waters surrounding their cities. They allow travelers to enter but there are eyes everywhere and if you make so much as a  _ wrong move _ …

It’s difficult to adjust, is all. So meeting the Kyuubi, hearing the way it thinks of humanity, Mito meets her first friend. She begins a new clan, adopts the deadliest, wildest shinobi children in the village, and teaches them the way of the Uzumaki. 

And when she meets Kushina’s eyes, that first time after Kushina’s kidnapping, and her gaze moves to Kushina’s young blonde boy, her teeth ache. She  _ wants  _ that. 

She wants to go out with a  _ bang _ .

\--

“We’re gonna walk on water?” Naruto asks, bouncing on his toes, because Konoha has no great bodies of water near his home and looking at it is like staring into his own eyes: clear on the surface, deep and swallowing and  _ cold  _ until you go numb from it. Sasuke swallows next to him and stares off into the trees, aware by this point that there is no escape and he doesn’t really want one, anyway. Naruto has promised him exactly what they both want, and he can’t help, almost, but  _ ache _ for it. 

“Yes,” says Kakashi, and he’s aware of Naruto’s heritage, of Kushina’s blood coloring the waters of Naruto’s nature, because he doesn’t try to stop his skin from paling. 

\--

Naruto torments Shikamaru on his days off sometimes.

( _ oi, pineapple head, entertain me. Prove Konoha is better, with your pansy-ass puppets all out on display and your shinobi who have never fed their own limbs to beasts for the fun of it, for the feeling of death lapping at their shores. _ )

( _ eat me, drink me, drown. _ )

The Naras have never been fans of the Uzumakis. There are too many inconsistencies in their stories, in the way dead things and damaged hearts cling to their touch. 

\--

All across the country there are descendents of the Uzumakis. They all come when Naruto calls, when he lets the fire in his belly reign over cities begging to be destroyed. Sasuke follows him, sinks into his footsteps with a shallow sigh, nearly content with this life. 

The people come in droves. There’s something to all of them; out of the corner of your eye, they are calm, pretty, deceptive. They are unremarkable.

Look them in the eye. There is fire there, tsunamis and massacres and monsters masquerading as people because it’s more fun than showing themselves. They unite under Naruto’s call, bring their precious people, and show the world a hell of a good time.

\--

Sasuke meets Itachi again, in the aftermath. The world is burning all around them, redheads shrieking with laughter and exuberance and childlike  _ joy  _ at their crumpled opponents. Itachi sways in place; Sasuke is heralded as the mate of their leader, powerful and deadly enough to prove his place. 

Itachi worries for his brother. He reaches into his brother’s mind, tries to find the source of the rot, and instead stick his head in the lion’s mouth.

_ Welcome back _ , whispers Kurama, and Itachi never worries about Sasuke again.

He wonders how he didn’t see it before.


	2. sneaking out the back door (this is what I live for)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kushina's POV because I felt like it...

Kushina’s proud of her village, her people. 

Not  _ Konoha _ . Uzushio, where allegiances are easy to sniff out and people don’t react so badly to a child who knows what they want and how to get it. Mito sits on her golden throne and gazes solemnly at Hashirama’s back, bottles up the violence and the  _ minemineminegetyourhandsOFF _ but it will never be enough to truly repress an Uzumaki’s nature: she gathers the children of Konoha to her and spreads the pervasive behaviors to them, unleashing them into the world like heralds. 

Kushina doesn’t begrudge her something in her blood. She is the only other Uzumaki in the city and understands Mito better than her own husband, but that doesn’t mean she’ll forgive a transgression, an invasion into what  _ belongs  _ to Kushina. 

Konoha is stifling.

\--

Most of all, she misses the dynamics. It’s difficult here, to tell where one belongs. She goes home and her parents are sitting there at the table and the tension could power a bomb the size of the Hokage Tower, but they’re not angry. Most of it is confusion, frustration,  _ why can’t I get this right _ ,  _ why do they do that? _

And then they’re dead, and there’s nothing to come home to, and Kushina is damaged goods because there’s nothing to define her role. She doesn’t have a niche here, no idea how to carve one out the way you do in Uzushio, and her world is crumbling into sandstone and Konoha’s disastrously tall trees.

\--

So she works for it, struggles and finds something to belong to her and nobody else. In Uzushio, your friends are your pack. You exist off of each other, feeding the others’ natures with yourself until it’s nearly impossible to live any other way. It’s not unusual for groups of friends ( _ packs _ ) to get a house together and live as a family.

It is unusual in Konoha.

Kushina claims the White Flash, Minato, and seethes for months because people  _ won’t respect her claim _ . She’s  _ furious _ . Is it because she’s not from here? Is it because she has nothing to her name but a gilded city leagues away and an empty house that reeks of loneliness and loss?

Then she realizes they just can’t tell Minato’s claimed. No one notices but Mito, who approves of Kushina’s choice of packmate. She is the only one unsurprised when Kushina cracks and marries him, desperate for a way to force the people of Konoha to accept that  _ he is hers _ and she will  _ kill for him _ , no questions asked, if he feels he needs her to. 

Literally. It’s that simple.

\--

When her son is born ( _ and he’s hers. Children belong with their mothers until they don’t, and she can’t say exactly when that point comes. It just does. _ ) she is given hours to greet him, to pass along everything he will ever need to know through a few simple touches and invisible, intangible, undetectable seals. Minato watches with curiosity, but this is a clan secret. This is the one thing she is unwilling to give her packmate, and in a small way it’s petty, the way she punishes him for his unknowing little mistakes over the years, how he doesn’t  _ know  _ all the things she’s known since birth.

It’s fine. Naruto will be her revenge on a world that took her home from her, that took her from her home. He will bring the fear of the Uzumaki back into the hearts of their enemies, and he will do it with a smile, just like his mother and grandmother and family before him.

Uzumakis do not die with regrets. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requests for this au are always open.  
> I will probably try to do a small bit from Mito's point of view, but if you want to see the situation from somebody else's SPEAK UP. :)


	3. end in fire (burn together)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karin's POV.  
> Title from Misty Mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to amhranstoirme, who wanted to see a take on Karin's mindset in this 'verse. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but practice will make perfect eventually, so feel free to keep suggesting stuff. Sorry if anything doesn't match canon about Karin's childhood, it's been a while since I read anything canon about her...  
> Please keep in mind that Sasuke never left Konoha, and thus has no reason to have met Karin and her Merry Murderers. :)  
> sorry it's so short!

Karin’s mother may have been nothing entirely special without her bloodline’s power, but Karin was a dragon and her mother was the only thing in her hoard. Now that she was dead, Karin had nothing to hold her back from burning the world. 

\--

Ever since Karin was a little girl, her mother had told her stories of Uzushio, of the people and the culture and how if someone was yours, you didn’t let anyone take them away, or if they did? It was entirely in your right to get revenge, to  _ take  _ from them the way they’d  _ taken  _ from you. 

_ Like dragons _ , Karin thought to herself, imagining herself as a great lizard curled around her mother, protecting her from everything and keeping her close forever. 

Now she was dead.

That village went up in flames, and Karin allowed herself to laugh at the way the small people screamed as her dragon’s fire ate through them, the way she and her mother could eat through themselves to survive.

“It’s just trying to stay alive,” she told a woman with a bucket of water, trying desperately to put out the flames. She could tell the woman didn’t recognize her at first, so Karin pulled off her cloak’s hood and grinned. Her teeth were terrible and pointy, perfect for biting into skin and staying stuck. The woman got all messy with tears and begging, but Karin was bored already. A dragon with a stolen hoard didn’t stop at just one town, oh no. The dragon kept going until everyone knew what had been taken and scorned the thieves, cast them out and begged for the dragon’s forgiveness. Karin didn’t have time for this stupid human woman.

Karin had a world to burn.

\--

Orochimaru was fun, but he seemed to think he was in charge of her. Dragons didn’t answer to snakes, they  _ ate  _ them. Karin burned every one of his bases she was sent to until eventually he stopped sending her. She was useful, but far too destructive.

It was too late for him to control her, though: she’d met another dragon, and another, and now they belonged to her, hoarded close to her chest and guarded jealously. 

And then she met another like her. He wasn’t a dragon, though: he was a wolf, a fox, something that walked with dead things on his heels.

She liked him, and his pet with the eyes. He supported her decision to burn the world, to rage for their mothers and let everything suffer. He put her in charge of gathering them all, the Uzumaki, the monsters, and she felt  _ so much delight  _ watching a housewife listen to her with a calm face while her ratty husband raged in the background. 

He wasn’t breathing when they left the house: the nice lady had calmly taken off her apron and set it aside, before just as casually revealing the knives she’d strapped to every limb. 

Karin wondered if she was the only one who’d ever met this woman’s happy, doting smile towards her knives with the same level of giddiness. She’d watched her new family choose a favorite and stalk into the other room. 

When she’d left, there wasn’t even a bloodstain. Even Suigetsu looked impressed.

“Of course,” Karin had preened. “She’s one of  _ us _ , Naruto and I and our mothers. An Uzumaki. There’s nothing in our way that could ever truly stop us.” The woman had listened to Suigetsu and Juugo’s praise with a shy smile. Violence lurked delicately, enticingly, at the edges.

“Oh, well, it’s taught from the womb, isn’t it?” She’d glanced at Karin, who’d nodded. “Uzumaki women have a way of transferring the memories, the skills, from an early age. The mindset, though, that’s all in the bloodline. We tend to be...open to destruction, no matter the form. It’s why the first jinchuuriki was an Uzumaki woman. There’s a sort of...lure, isn’t there?”

Suigetsu and Juugo looked mildly thoughtful. Karin was grinning. Just the thought of Uzumaki history, Uzumaki culture, made her wish for Uzushio. Life had been different there, better. It wasn’t Uzushio’s fault the other countries had trouble grasping that.


	4. he told me I was holy (ignite me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi knows exactly what he's doing as he teaches Naruto. People seem to forget that he learned just as much from Kushina as Minato.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi pov. It's been a while, y'all. :)

Kakashi is perhaps not the best judge of character. Growing up, it had been his father and Minato-sensei and Kushina, the Red Hot Habanero, who influenced him. Others tried, of course, because they were shinobi and even at home shinobi made allies by force or manipulation if they could, but Kakashi was stubborn, and distrustful, and liked biting (he was a Hatake, after all, teething tended to extend into the dangerous years with them) and eventually they pulled back, creeping at the edges of his life, just how he liked it.

Well, his father had killed himself and Minato-sensei and Kushina had died and what did Kakashi do now? He was a shinobi. He’d get by.

\--

Despite his various shortcomings, Kakashi knew Naruto was growing up to be a monster. His Uzumaki blood had been exacerbated by the village’s unkindness and now he practically dripped controlled, dignified malice. Kakashi had the sense that he himself was a pet, chained carefully within the shell of Naruto’s protective range. He was one of the few Naruto truly cared for. That was good. It meant he wouldn’t end up like Mizuki, who had betrayed the monster and had his intestines strung about in the trees like celebratory garlands. Not that Kakashi was stupid enough for betrayal.

\--

Naruto was good enough at pretending to be normal, Kakashi supposed. He smiled on cue and laughed at all the normal things. He didn’t really have friends, but nobody noticed that because none of them truly  _ expected _ the demon’s cage to have friends, even the Hokage. He also never said his death threats aloud, or with his eyes or hands, which was an excellent distraction for anyone who only saw him for about five seconds at a time and didn’t think too deeply about it.

Kakashi had known Kushina, the constant scent of blood and decay, the sweet smell of ashes after she burned some idiot’s fingers off for daring to touch her hair in a fight. The brat had cried about it for weeks as though she’d done something wrong. Kakashi had figured it was pretty obvious: Kushina was not the kind of person to hold back if she wanted to destroy someone. This time she hadn’t. The brat was lucky she hadn’t gone for his throat, like a Hatake would have if displeased.

\--

Kakashi knew the village was secretly glad the more feral clans like the Hatake were dying out and being replaced with something tamer like the Inuzuka. Domesticated pets of the village. They scoffed at him, told him he ought to join a pack.  _ Everyone knows lone wolves don’t last long _ , Tsume had told him, her voice saccharine and caring. 

She’d been pissed when he destroyed one of her best rooms at the clinic with a smile.

\--

Kakashi knows what he’s getting himself into when he teaches certain skills to Naruto. He knows exactly what’s coming: Naruto has eyes like the sun, burning and hopeful and damaging without protection. Kakashi knows that many of the villagers won’t survive what’s coming, that they don’t even know to prepare. 

He keeps pace at Naruto’s side, envelopes himself in the feeling that comes with running and hunting with a pack of demons and bloodthirsty redheads like Kushina, looks out into the village of people who decided they didn’t care.

He isn’t going to be the one to inform them.

\--

In the end, Kakashi wonders why the Uzumaki and the Hatake never became bonded clans. He’s never felt more alive than when he’s by their sides, blood between his teeth, claws wet with the sweat of a good fight, silver hair dyed a pale sheen of red in the moonlight. It seems a waste, though perhaps it’s for the best. The world wouldn’t have survived them together; it barely survives the Uzumaki alone, decimated in numbers and running on hatred and determination and bloodlust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really want to write Uzumaki Kushina being Kakashi's murder-mom but couldn't quite get it flowing. Anyway, hope you enjoyed despite that!

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to suggest tags for this, or scenes you'd like to see from this au. I actually really liked writing it but felt that the thoughts I wanted to get out weren't coming out, so I wouldn't be adverse to expanding this au.


End file.
